Master the Moment

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POWERFUL NOTIONS

… the changes are so indefinitely numerous and subtle

that the entire organism may be called a sounding-board,

which every change of consciousness, however slight, may

reverberate. The various permutations and combinations

of which these organic activities are susceptible make it

abstractly impossible that no shade of emotion, however

slight, should be without a bodily reverberation as unique,

when taken in its totality, as in the mental mood itself.

The immense number of parts modified in each emotion is

what makes it so difficult for us to reproduce in cold blood

the total and integral expression of any one of them. We

may catch the trick with the voluntary muscles, but fail

with the skin, glands, heart, and other viscera. Just as an

artificially imitated sneeze lacks something of the reality,

so the attempt to imitate an emotion in the absence of its

normal instigating cause is apt to be rather ‘hollow’.

(James 1899)

Clearly William James didn’t think you can get away with fooling

people on a regular basis. At best trying to communicate some-

thing different from what you feel works in the short term. But it

becomes an increasingly consuming activity over time. Eventually

people pick up on it and doubt your sincerity.

The best thing you can do is understand how you feel about

something and why you feel that way. While you’ll probably

have a tough time lying about how you feel, you might be able

to rethink your attitude. You’ll get much further by doing that.

MANAGING YOUR ATTITUDE

William James wrote a lot about emotion and attitude. On

managing attitude he made the following observation: ‘Human

beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can

change the outer aspects of their lives.’ (James 1899)

High achievers know this and they use it to their advantage. They

may not be able to change reality. And they may not be able to hide

how they feel. But they can change their perspective and their

focus. They can thereby change how they feel, and consequently

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MASTER THE MOMENT

how they react. Managing your attitude not only leads to higher

levels of productivity, but what’s more important, it leads to higher

levels of wellbeing.

Randy Rose, who was Chief Operating Officer at Energizer

Holdings before becoming CEO of Enzymatic Therapy, told me:

‘Sure, I manage my attitude. For example, I do this when a huge

challenge is dropped upon me. I cannot necessarily take some-

thing from a sorry state today and make it great, but I can make

it a little better today, still better tomorrow, and so on. And I can

certainly change my attitude, so that instead of seeing something

as a catastrophe, I see it as something I can improve little by

little. In other words, instead of seeing this huge insurmountable

problem before me, I rethink my attitude to view it as a series of

smaller problems that I can solve one at a time. I find that this

overrides any panic sensation that might be my initial reaction.’

Randy went on to say: ‘I encourage people in my organization to

try to view things differently. Put things in a positive light – not

by fooling yourself about the facts, but changing your perspec-

tive. For example, when something seems unpleasant in the

short term, think about how it fits into a larger context. Another

example is: when you are faced with a problem for which you

have no immediate solution, remind yourself that just because

you don’t know the answer today, [it] doesn’t mean you won’t

know it tomorrow. Remind yourself that in the past you have

been able to solve similar problems even if the solution didn’t

come to you right away.’

David Novak is CEO of Yum! Brands. Because his family moved

around constantly as he was growing up, he had to get good at

making new friends and dealing with new situations.

He reasons that most of our fears are about things that never come

to pass. The remainder of our fears are about things that turn out

to be quite different from what we anticipate. You can’t do away

with your fears, but you can learn to keep them in check. (Novak

and Boswell 2007)

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